Top Seeds Reach Brooklyn Doubles Final
By Rob Dinerman; SquashTalk © 2006; all rights of reproduction reserved.
Feb 26 , 2006     

In a memorable day filled with five-game thrillers, eleventh-hour rallies and pulsating tiebreakers, four-time defending champions Gary Waite and Damien Mudge and their fellow three-time tournament titlists this season Preston Quick and Ben Gould made it into the final round of the $ 30,000 David Johnson Jr. tourney hosted as always at Heights Casino.

Both needed to survive testing five-game challenges today, with Waite and Mudge being forced to go the distance in a 15-9 14-15 15-7 7-15 15-5 semifinal against Clive Leach and Scott Butcher (the only non-top-four seed to crack the semis) and Quick and Gould having to repulse two fifth-game match-balls-against in their 17-16 simultaneous-match-point quarter over Jamie Bentley and Paul Price (when a Price tin was followed by a Quick corner-shot winner out of the blue) and then dropping the opening game of their semi vs Chris Walker and Viktor Berg (who had beaten Quick/Gould twice in a row in the last month, including the Cleveland final two weeks ago) before capturing a crucial second-game tiebreaker and proceeding to a 12-15 17-14 15-5 15-9 victory.

This sets up a rematch of last year's Johnson final, won narrowly by Waite/Mudge in four close games. The latter pairing had mid-game spurts this evening from 7-all to 14-7 in the first and from 7-6 to 13-7 in the third nullified by a Waite tinned backhand reverse-corner at 14-all in the second and by a flat stretch that cost them the fourth game. Leach and Butcher had solidly out-played first 2002 Johnson finalist (with Mike Pirnak) David Kay and John Russell and then fourth seeds Pirnak (who won this event with Berg in 2001) and Willie Hosey, and they played The Champs to a standstill, both statistically and territorially, through the first four games of the semis.

Leach was utilizing the full panoply of his considerable talent, alternating his power game with shot-making and creativity, and Butcher was clearly inspired by finally being in the company of a partner of Leach's quality after enduring several disappointing partnerships during the past 18 months, the most notable being Butcher's ill-begotten and mercifully brief alliance this past autumn with Josh McDonald, who tinned away several matches before leaving the tour and returning to his native Ottawa a few months ago. Buoyed by the turn of fortune he had recently undergone, Butcher played the vaunted Waite on virtually even terms in a heated and physical left-wall bump-and-grind battle.

They seemed in good shape entering the fifth, but at that point Mudge took over, dominating the game primarily with his serve, which, astonishingly produced five outright winners, four of which were at Butcher's expense, three of them on back-wall nicks and the fourth when his attempted lob-serve-return was picked off by an overhanging beam. This series of unusual developments all occurred during the eight-point Waite/Mudge surge from 3-2 to 11-2 that sealed the anticlimactic outcome of what was nevertheless an exceptionally entertaining display of skill and athleticism.

The lone remaining five-game match of the day was the quarter between Cleveland champs and North American Open finalists Walker and Berg and Alex Pavulans and Chris Deratnay, who had gotten to that stage by defeating qualifiers Ayman Kerim and Joe Pentland. Pavulans and Deratnay actually led two games to one, but Berg and Walker won the last two stanzas at 12 and 9, then, as noted, took the first game of their Quick/Gould semi before their bid for a third straight win over the second seeds foundered in the subsequent trio of games. The final is set for 2:00 on Sunday.

David Johnson Doubles Recap

Rd of 16:
Doug Lifford/Pat Malloy d James Hewitt/Tyler Millard, 3-1;
Scott Butcher/Clive Leach d John Russell/David Kay, 3-1;
Chris Deratnay/Alex Pavulans d Joe Pentland/Ayman Kerim, 3-0;
Paul Price/Jamie Bentley d Michael Ferreira/Whitten Morris, 3-1.

Qtrs:
Gary Waite/Damien Mudge d Lifford/Malloy, 3-0;
Butcher/Leach d Pirnak/Hosey, 3-0;
Chris Walker/Viktor Berg d Deratnay/Pavulans, 3-2;
Preston Quick/Ben Gould d Price/Bentley, 3-2.

Semis:
Waite/Mudge d Butcher/Leach, 3-2;
Quick/Gould d Walker/Berg, 3-1.

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